


Closer

by MaryPSue



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Community: rotg_kink, Crack, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-23
Updated: 2013-03-23
Packaged: 2017-12-06 06:50:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/732660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaryPSue/pseuds/MaryPSue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Whatever Jack was expecting when he went to investigate the noises coming from Pitch's lair, this definitely wasn't it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Closer

It’s not like Jack’s _scared_ , or anything.

He’s just – being cautious. Yeah. That’ll work. Caution is good, right? And he’s worried about the kids! With the entrance to Pitch’s lair being so close to Burgess, where the kids who’d thwarted his plot for world domination live, who wouldn’t be? Really, Jack’s just doing his duty as a newly-instated Guardian by flying by the clearing with the beat-up bedframe in it every few weeks. Or every few days. Just in case.

So: cautious, worried even, but not scared. Definitely not scared.

Of course, the involuntary backflip he does midair when he flies over and the bed _jumps_ might say otherwise.

It takes Jack a moment to get back upright and under control, landing with a little less than his usual grace on the very edge of the clearing. With his feet on the ground, it doesn’t take long to figure out why the bedframe is bouncing around like Baby Tooth after Jack gave her a jellybean. ( _That_ particular incident is one he’s not going to be allowed to forget for a very long time.) The ground is shaking – no, not shaking, _pulsing_ , very slightly, and he’d almost think it was an earthquake if this wasn’t Pennsylvania and the pulses weren’t weirdly regular. It’s almost like a rhythm, and it gets stronger the closer Jack inches towards the bedframe. In fact, by the time he’s looking down into the ominous darkness that fills the hole leading down to Pitch’s lair, Jack can swear he can hear something – an almost impossibly low note pounding in time with the pulses.

Shaking off an uncomfortable sense of familiarity, Jack calls up a wind and slips down the hole before he can stop and think about the millions of reasons he shouldn’t be doing this. This is probably a bad idea. No, this is _definitely_ a bad idea. But then again, that’s never stopped Jack Frost before, and he’s not going to let it now.

And it’s not like he’s scared.

Pitch’s lair is just as dark and forbidding as the last time Jack was here, if not more so. The globe with its soft golden lights has vanished, disappeared into the murk and gloom, and without that gentle glow, the whole place is somehow not just darker but more menacing. The shafts of light from some unknown source don’t so much illuminate the place as define the shadows, and more than once Jack trips over an uneven patch of floor in the dark. The pounding is louder down here, and the shaking makes the shadows shift and writhe in thoroughly unnerving ways. There’s another sound, too, something high-pitched that sounds almost like the faintest echo of a moan, but distinctly _not_ human.

Jack holds his staff a little closer as he follows the sound to the mouth of what’s probably just a hallway, but looks like a black hole. Both the pounding and the weirdly melodic wailing noise are definitely coming from here, though, and he only hesitates a moment before plowing onward. He’s come this far, after all.

As it turns out, it _is_ a hallway that he’s stumbled on. At first it’s just as dark and creepy as the entryway, but a few feet in, torches suddenly spring to life all along the hall. The light they give off is silvery and cold, and the place is still gloomy and full of shifting shadows, but at least now Jack can see where he’s going. Even if ‘where he’s going’ is a seemingly endless hallway full of elaborately-carved arches with the occasional grotesque face etched into them. When he stares too long at one carving and it _winks_ at him, he could _swear_ it did, Jack gives up on examining the décor and turns back to the noises that brought him here in the first place.

It’s weird, but the farther down the hall he goes, the more the strange noises are starting to sound like…music. Music being blared at eardrum-burstingly-loud levels, but still music. Jack can’t quite wrap his head around it, because he knows what music sounds like and this? Is not it. This sounds like a cat with its tail caught in a concrete mixer. And possibly the cat is robotic.

The – music? Music - is almost unbearably loud by the time he reaches the end of the hall. It ends in a door, almost twice as tall as Jack, covered in complicated carvings and thick bands of some dark metal that feels cold even to his touch. Cold light spills out from underneath it, along with the bass that’s now so loud that Jack can’t so much hear it as feel it, and the weird mechanical screeches and whines that make up the melody. And, now that he’s this close, he can hear a voice.  It’s impossible to make out what it’s actually saying – or, rather, singing – but it’s definitely a voice.

And – is that _Pitch?_ _Singing along_?

No one has ever said that Jack Frost has less curiosity than common sense.  He leans on the door, which resists for only a moment before it swings open with the heavy inevitability of a tidal wave. He’d thought the music was loud before, but with the door open it hits him like a physical blow. That isn’t why he stumbles backwards, though.

No, _that_ would be because the door opens to reveal a – er – _flamboyantly_ dressed Boogeyman, waving a black-sand microphone and screaming along with the music. Even that wouldn’t have been so bad, though (even _with_ the feathers and the – is that a _corset_? That is _definitely_ a corset), if it weren’t for the fact that Jack can finally make out the lyrics.

He doesn’t wait around to see Pitch’s reaction, desperately calling up a wind to get him _out of there_ as quickly as possible. It isn’t until he’s back aboveground and passing over Iqaluit that he finally slows down enough to breathe. He considers dropping right here, right now, into the nearest glacier, and scrubbing his eyeballs until the image is no longer burned onto his retinas, but somehow he knows it won’t do any good.

Jack is going to be having nightmares about Pitch screaming “I wanna fuck you like an animal” for _decades_.

**Author's Note:**

> For this kinkmeme prompt: http://rotg-kink.dreamwidth.org/2389.html?thread=4348501#cmt4348501
> 
> The song, for those who didn't recognise it from the title or last line, is Nine Inch Nails' 'Closer', which is always funny in conjunction with media intended for children.
> 
> And if you imagined book!Pitch's outfit, you are at least halfway correct.


End file.
